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When approaching business owners, some advisors talk about taking a wealth management approach to provide integrated advice around their finances.
A couple of years back I chaired a conference at which one of the speakers was a woman who built her business around successful entrepreneurs. In this woman’s view, that approach is too vague and generic.
Getting in the door with business owners
Her experience is that to get busy business owners’ attention, you have to focus on something that’s specific and is causing concern and frustration – and so is a hot button for them.
She suggested saying something like:
“A common concern for many of the successful business owners I work with is increasing the interest rate they get on cash balances in their company bank accounts.
Are you satisfied with the interest rate you’re getting on your bank balances?”
Almost always the answer is no. Sometimes it leads to a short meeting with the owner, on other occasions she gets passed off to their VP of finance or comptroller.
But the fact is that this increases her chances of getting in the door. And even if she initially meets with the comptroller, she inevitably gets in front of the owner.
Tapping into prospects’ hot buttons
The same principle applies to other types of prospects.
When approaching prospective clients, some advisors talk about their plan-based approach to hitting client objectives or their focus on building conservative portfolios that allow clients to sleep at night.
The problem with these approaches is that they’re too generic.
Given today’s level of investor anxiety, consider instead two words that will get through to many prospects.
